Born and raised in Brussels , his father enrolled him in a Shotokan karate school at the age of ten, which led Van Damme to hold the rank of 2nd- dan black belt in karate , and compete in several karate and kickboxing competitions.
As a teenager, he won the middleweight championship of the European Professional Karate Association in and the Mr. Belgium bodybuilding title in With the desire of becoming an actor in Hollywood , he moved to the United States in , where he worked on several films, until he got his break as the lead in the martial arts film Bloodsport He became a popular action film star and followed up with commercially successful films such as Cyborg , Kickboxer both , Lionheart , Death Warrant both , Double Impact , Universal Soldier , Nowhere to Run , Hard Target both , Timecop , Street Fighter both , Sudden Death , The Quest , which marked his directorial debut , and Maximum Risk both He achieved sex symbol status in the late s and early s.
His big return to the action genre was in The Expendables 2 , in which he starred as the villain, opposite Sylvester Stallone 's character. From thereon, he continued starring in action films and doing extensive voice work, appearing in the well-received Enemies Closer , The Bouncer , Kickboxer: Retaliation both , Minions: The Rise of Gru , and Darkness of Man , among others.
His paternal grandmother was Jewish. According to Van Damme, ballet "is an art, but it's also one of the most difficult sports. If you can survive a ballet workout, you can survive a workout in any other sport. Van Damme trained for four years and he earned a spot on the Belgian Karate Team; he later trained in full-contact karate and kickboxing with Dominique Valera. I was kind of geeky, and physically I was not gifted".
At the age of 15, he started his competitive karate career in Belgium. From to , he compiled a record of 44 victories and four defeats in tournament and non-tournament semi-contact matches. At the three-day tournament, he defeated 25 opponents before losing in the finals to teammate Angelo Spataro.
